Voters rough on West U incumbents

Published 7:00 pm, Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Editor's note: this article was inadvertenly taken off the Web site after it was published May 16.

It’s Kelly by wide margin; Fry tops council candidates

In what could be interpreted as a further referendum on the referendums, West University Place voters Saturday denied two incumbents’ bids for office, while returning the 2005 election’s top voter-getter with only a third-place finish.

In the race for mayor, former Mayor Pro Tem Bob Kelly defeated Councilman Mike Woods in stunning fashion, garnering about 70 percent of the more than 1,700 ballots cast.

“I began to sort of expect that during the end (of the campaign),” Kelly said Sunday of his margin of victory. “There seemed to be a groundswell against the parks proposal and how much money might be spent at City Hall.”

In November, two referendums that would have allowed as much as $25.6 million to be spent on the Colonial Park pool and the city’s Recreation Center were defeated by residents, many of whom called the proposals excessive.

While considerably closer, the City Council contest wasn’t much kinder to incumbents. Councilman Dick Yehle lost, finishing a close fifth in his bid for re-election to one of the four at-large positions available.

Faring better was Councilwoman Phyllis Cohen, who was returned for a second term, but with only 15.4 percent of the vote as compared to 22.6 percent in her previous effort.

Each ballot allowed for as many as four of the 10 candidates to receive votes.

Receiving the most votes for a council seat was businessman Bob Fry with 1,021, or 19.2 percent of all votes cast. Following Fry and joining him on council are retired engineer Chuck Guffey, 836 votes (15.7 percent); Cohen 818 votes (15.4 percent); and home builder Michael Talianchich, 757 votes (14.2 percent).